Ujamaa Africa reduces the prevalence of rape and sexual assault in the slums of Nairobi, Kenya. They teach boys about respect for women and how to intervene in the event of an assault.
Kenya Program Challenges Gender-Based Violence Norms
Sexual assault is endemic in Kenya, with one in four schoolgirls having experienced it in the past year. Ujamaa Africa began a program to empower girls to fight back against assailants with self-defense tactics (see tactic here). They learned that boyfriends commit the majority of sexual assaults and rapes. With this knowledge, they developed a program called “Your Moment of Truth” to raise high school boys’ awareness of the attitudes that perpetuate gender-based violence.
The Your Moment of Truth curriculum contains six two-hour lessons. The lessons focus on teaching adolescent boys how to make difficult choices, including whether or not to rape someone. Social theory, the idea that people copy the behaviors of those around them, plays an important part. Boys can make a difference simply by refusing to participate in actions or conversations that are demeaning to women. Yet taking a stand requires courage, so many of the lessons focus on building confidence.
Measuring the Success of this Tactic
The Your Moment of Truth program has been very successful in improving the attitudes of adolescent boys towards girls and women. At the start of the course, many boys believed it was justifiable to rape a girl if she was out after dark or had been taken on an expensive date. 63.1% of boys in one study agreed that a woman wearing a sexy dress was inviting men to have sex with her. Additionally, 58.5% thought that when a woman said “no” to sex she really meant “maybe.” After the six-week course, only 14.5% believed that a woman’s outfit was a sign of permission for sex. Only 22.8% thought that “no” meant “maybe.”
Boys who had completed the program also were successful in stopping or preventing sexual assaults. Six months after the boys completed the course, 47.7% of them had witnessed verbal sexual harassment. 47% had witnessed someone physically threatening a girl or woman, and 34.7% had witnessed a physical or sexual assault. Over 70% of those had successfully intervened to stop the abuse in each case.
The initial challenges faced by Ujamaa Africa were funding for the program and opposition from some teachers. Teachers were reluctant initially as their presence was required during the sessions which follow immediately after classes. However, they overcame these challenges once tangible results were seen from the training. There are plans for further expansion for this program in Africa including global expansion.
See other examples of targeting potential future perpetrators regarding: policing, HIV transference, government corruption and judicial actions.
Resources:
Boys trained to fight rape
Trained that ‘No Means No,’ young Kenyan men act to stop rape
